Medical Conditions
Dr. Johnson is it true that health conditions like blood pressure, cholesterol and even diabetes can be detected from an eye exam?
Many people are amazed by this. We screen every patient’s blood pressure when we examine their eyes yearly. This lets us know if there is a life threatening or stroke component to their health when we are examining their vision. Blood pressure that is not being controlled can affect the blood circulation and cause bleeding in the back of the eye and vision loss.
Cholesterol can affect blood circulation in the eyes and if seen in the blood vessels as a plaque blockage can affect not only the eye health but could be a sign that there may be a blockage in a major artery which could be an early warning sign of stroke potential.
Diabetes is often seen in the course of an eye exam. Many of our patients are diabetic. Diabetes can be detected at several different stages. Based on the appearance of the patient’s eye health , sudden changes in their vision prescription, recent gains or losses of weight, craving sugar and having to use the bathroom frequently are strong indications that the patient may need blood work before any vision prescription is ever written. If they are found to be diabetic then we wait until their sugar levels have been stabilized about 6 weeks before we prescribe vision correction changes. The diabetic patient should be checking their blood sugar daily or weekly depending on what their treating doctor has recommended. They should have their eyes examined yearly and every 6 months have their eye doctor look at their eye health. Diabetic patients are at greater risk for developing glaucoma because there is a lack of blood circulation in the body as well as in the eyes. I treat many glaucoma patients that are diabetic. Cataracts are also likely to be found in the diabetic patient which need to be monitored but not necessarily treated with surgery. The “wet form” of macular degeneration is also more commonly found in diabetic patients and must be caught soon enough and treated surgically to help keep them from going blind.